Adult

THE SNAKES exposes the damage wreaked by parents on children as observed by a new member of the Adamson family, Dan, a mixed-race man from Peckham who marries Bea, the daughter who refuses to take any of her father’s filthy money. But when Bea’s brother Alex (who runs a shabby hotel in Paligny, France) dies suddenly in unexplained circumstances, the confusion and suspicion that arise bring other dark family secrets --- and violence --- to the surface. And none of the family, even the good members, go untouched.

Marilyn Connolly and David Sorenson fall in love in the 1970s, blithely ignorant of all that awaits them. By 2016, they have four radically different daughters, each in a state of unrest. Wendy, widowed young, soothes herself with booze and younger men; Violet, a litigator turned stay-at-home-mom, battles anxiety and self-doubt; Liza, a neurotic and newly tenured professor, finds herself pregnant with a baby she's not sure she wants by a man she's not sure she loves; and Grace, the dawdling youngest daughter, begins living a lie that no one in her family even suspects. With the unexpected arrival of young Jonah Bendt --- a child placed for adoption by one of the daughters 15 years before --- the Sorensons will be forced to reckon with the rich and varied tapestry of their past.

Tikka Malloy was 11 and one-sixth years old during the long, hot, Australian summer of 1992. The TV news in the background chattered with debate about the exoneration of Lindy (“dingo took my baby”) Chamberlain. That summer was when the Van Apfel sisters --- Ruth, Hannah and the beautiful Cordelia --- mysteriously disappeared. Did they just run far away from their harsh, evangelical parents, or were they taken? While the search for the girls united the small community, the mystery of their disappearance was never solved, and Tikka and her older sister, Laura, have been haunted ever since by the loss of their friends and playmates. Now, years later, Tikka has returned home to try to make sense of that strange moment in time.

America is under fire. One by one, simultaneous terror attacks have left the country reeling. The perpetrators are former Special Forces operatives working for ISIS. Jonathan Grave and his team are called to go undercover and eliminate the traitors. The assaults are rehearsals for extreme disaster. A plot codenamed Retribution. One terrorist is willing to talk --- for a price. Grave’s only resort is to slip into a dark web where everything can be exposed. Where the rules of engagement do not hold. The bombs have been set, and Grave is the one being hunted. Unless he can save himself first, a terrorist plot of unimaginable scope will become history’s deadliest disaster.

Will Matthews came to Wall Street with hopes and dreams of hitting it big. But things have not been going as expected. He’s on the verge of being fired when he meets the devilishly mysterious and fabulously wealthy Sam Abaddon. Winning Sam’s business answers Will’s prayers, catapulting the young stockbroker into the privileged world of money and luxury. Not only that, but Will also has met his dream girl, ambitious attorney Gwen Lipton. But when Will witnesses a shocking act of violence, his charmed new existence is revealed to be a waking nightmare as the truth about his benefactor --- and his own complicity in criminal conduct --- becomes devastatingly clear.

An online video of a girl clawing at the ceiling of her own grave could be the worst thing FBI forensic psychologist Zoe Bentley has ever seen. Perhaps even more disturbing is the implication of the video’s title: “Experiment Number One.” Zoe and her partner, Special Agent Tatum Gray, work as fast as they can to find the monster behind the shocking video, but soon another one shows up online, and another girl turns up dead. Meanwhile, a different murderer is on Zoe’s mind. Rod Glover has been tormenting her since childhood, and his latest attack is a threatening photo of himself with Zoe’s sister. As Glover’s threats creep toward action, Zoe is torn between family and duty.

WOMEN RISE UP shares the stories of biblical women, connecting them to contemporary global gender issues. In doing so, Katey Zeh speaks truth to women's oppression and erasure while reminding us of the sacredness of women's experience, wisdom, solidarity and sisterhood.

OUR SYMPHONY WITH ANIMALS is the first book by a physician to show how deeply the well-being of humans and animals are entwined. Interwoven throughout is Dr. Aysha Akhtar’s own story of being a young girl who was bullied in school and sexually abused by her uncle. Feeling abandoned by humanity, it was only when she met Sylvester, a dog who also had been abused, that she found strength for both of them. Against the backdrop of her inspiring story, Dr. Akhtar asks: What do we gain when we recognize our kinship with animals? She travels around the country to tell the stories of a varied cast of characters --- including a former mobster, an industrial chicken farmer and a Marine veteran --- and comes face to face with a serial killer.

A Nigerian graduate student who has made his home in America knows what it means to strike out for new shores. When his wife proposes that he accompany her to Berlin, where she has been awarded a prestigious arts fellowship, he has his reservations. In Berlin, Helon Habila’s central character finds himself thrown into contact with a community of African immigrants and refugees whose lives previously seemed distant from his own, but to which he is increasingly drawn. The walls between his privileged, secure existence and the stories of these other Africans on the move soon crumble, and his sense of identity begins to dissolve as he finds that he no longer can separate himself from others’ horrors, or from Africa.

Rumor has it that a notorious killer, who committed a brutal crime as a child, has been living a new life under an assumed identity in Joanna’s seaside town. So who is the criminal hidden in their midst? Suspicion falls on everyone. As Joanna becomes obsessed with the case, her curiosity will expose her son and his father to the supposedly reformed murderer --- who may be ready to kill again. She will learn how dangerous one rumor can become…and just how far she must go to protect those she loves. She is going to regret the day she ever said a word.